Being Holden: an extention to the end
by Shafaishkafaa
Summary: This is how I see Holden a couple of months after the end of the book.


[The following is an extension to the Catcher in the Rye by J.D Salinger]

I know, and I won't act like I don't. I know I said I finished telling you what there was to tell. What the hell did I know I was supposed to come back to be psychoanalyzed once a month? I damn well hope you don't act all shocked about me talking to you again. I hate it when people act all shocked about you talking to them again. Unless it's someone really boring like that guy I roomed with at the Elkton Hills, Harris Macklin. He was one of the biggest bores I've ever met. Boy, could he whistle though!

There's this guy, James Woodall, who sometimes reminds me of old Macklin 'cuz he rasps so much about goddamn boring things you don't want to hear in the first place. He's a helluva bore, I tell ya. And I doubt he can whistle too hot, unless he does it in secret. Anyway- he's from Elsdon Long Hills. Oh yeah, that's the name of my new school. It's alright. Although, sometimes I think I decided to stay there on account of the fact that it _has _no 'Long Hills', if there is such a thing as 'Long Hills'. It's by this great, big pond, that this janitor I was talking to one day, told me was artificially made. That killed me. I can just about imagine all those guys from the dorms shoving buckets of water into a hole in the ground.

Elsdon Long Hills, even though I'm not exactly kicking and screaming to go back to, is a hell of a lot different than all the other schools I've been in. Arnold, the guy who's been psychoanalyzing me says that I've just learnt to 'identify and relate better with my peers'. I think that's half a load of crap. It's not _all_ crap seeing as how I feel a lot less depressed than I used to back when I left Pency Prep. And he had to come up with _something_ since he's been 'working' with me for almost a year now! A couple of months ago, Arnold sat me down in his cabin, all seriously. Like when I walked up to his cabin and I was about to knock he opened the door just then, thinking I'd mess my ill head up trying to figure out which way the door opens or something. Then he did the usual, he asked me if I wanted anything to eat or drink. But you could tell he meant it, like this one time I asked him for juice and he was very nice about it and all. He asked me if I'd done any more thinking about my painting and I said I hadn't, which wasn't true. You see, the day before he'd asked me to paint a picture of anything I wanted to. I figured, he expected me to paint cuz' that was supposed to be my recreational activity while I was here. Turns out he tricked me. He did it all casual too.

"Hello Holden!" he said, coming up from behind me. I was in the big balcony looking outside at the view of a slightly grey sky and a parked station wagon. "Lookin' at the view?" People are so helpless. They'll say just about _any_thing to strike up a conversation with you. Even if they see you looking at the view, they'll ask. He asked me if I wanted to paint a picture; that he'd get me paint and paper. I wondered why on earth he would think I'd be any good at painting.

"C'mon, just something to do. You can paint anything you like!" he tempted me with that last bit.

So anyway- there I was, on this huge couch in old Arnold's cabin lying to him about my painting when he went, "I have something to tell you." He said it all slow, while looking me in the eyes all gravely. I got to say, that scared me a little bit. I thought maybe something was wrong with Phoebe, for a second. But then he started off with all this stuff about how he looked at my painting closely and how it was it meant for him to secretly analyze my brain and all.

I'd painted my old room at Pency Prep. It had in it, a broken window and my table with Allie's baseball glove on it. You know, his baseball glove with the poems in green ink. There was Stradlater's tie on the floor and old Ackley sticking his head out of the shower curtains that separated our rooms. Don't ask me why I painted this, I just did. Sometimes you just _do _things without an explanation. You really do. I thought Arnold'd get a big kick out of it cuz' I'd talked so much Stradlater and Ackley. Turns out he tricked me.

"Your condition is a result of unresolved issues with your deceased brother, Allie's death." Deceased. I hated the way he said that. I thought I'd lay one on him for talking that way about Allie. But he just went on talking. "Holden, your illness- your depression is due to Allie's untimely and certainly unfair death." He wouldn't stop talking. Then holding up my painting, he pointed at Allie's baseball glove, "Can you see that? That signifies your brother. Do you see how the glove is on the table? You've put Allie on a pedestal."

All I could do was stare back at the painting.

"Alright. Could you explain this tie here on the floor, who does it belong to? And who is this boy, peeping out of the curtain?" he said still pointing stuff out.

"That's Stradlator's tie, my roommate from Pency Prep. The guy's Ackley, the guy who roomed next to me."

"Ah, yes. I remember him. The boy who never put things back in their right places when he picked them up. Ackley Kid, you called him." He smiled at me and I felt all funny inside. "Can you explain to me why this window here is cracked?"

"I don't know." And I meant it. I didn't know. But then he did this weird thing. He didn't say anything. He just held the painting up, motionless. Like he was waiting for me to smack my forehead and exclaim, 'Oh!' in an unstoppable fit of excitement, just as soon as I figure out what obvious detail I'd missed. Then I just thought old Arnold'd lost his marbles. He wouldn't move. And then I started feeling all funny again. I got really nervous and my fingers all started shaking and all. It was embarrassing as hell but I couldn't help it, I was so nervous. He gave me a knowing smile, and urged me to answer him.

"Go ahead!"

So I'll tell you how Elsdon Long Hills was different. Not that it had no phonies or anything because it did. It really did. But maybe not as many and the ones that were too, seemed too stupid for you to get worked up over. You could tell they were one of those guys who didn't really have anything going for them except being a phony. Without it they'd just be aimlessly walking around but pretending they knew what the hell they were doing, which is goddamn worse anyway! My roommate Tom, is what I call a semi-phony, like he insists that everyone call him Tommy Thompson-which is his full name-every time you call him. It really ticked me off when I first started, but turns out he was a helluva guy. He hates the movies too and wants to call up Isak Dinesen too cuz' he loved Out of Africa. Then there's Julia Smith who studies up at Elsdon Girls which is right next to my wing. I've seen her walking to school with her friends. I smiled at her from my window once, so now everyday when she walks to school she cranks her head up like she'd slept on a really hard pillow all night, to get a look at my window. That kills me!

I sent a letter to Phoebe a few weeks ago telling her about what Arnold told me the day he showed me my painting and all. I wrote it to Phoebe but I told her to show it to my parents too, if you wanna know the truth. I told them how old Arnold told me all my 'not applying myself' business was to do with Allie's unfair death. The glove, the crack in the window and all got me depressed all the goddamn time cuz' of my 'unconscious defense mechanism called: displacement'. He'd said I'd been taking my anger over Allie's death and sticking it on all the phonies I knew, which he said was almost everyone I knew. I also threw in some good stuff in the letter, to make 'em all happy. You know, shoot the bull a little bit about school and stuff.

I got a letter from Phoebe yesterday. It ended like this: 'If a body catch a body coming through the rye…' I shouldn't have told you all this about me. Don't ever tell anybody anything. If you do, they start missing you.


End file.
